They were in Geneva

29, 30 September and 1st October 2017

PHOTO GALLERY

NEWS

THE SAGA OF THE GIANTS

In this time of grace in September 2017, and by the incredible conjugation of a particular alignment of stars in space, astronomers from all over the world saw a shower of meteorites rushing to Earth.

Although it was impossible to distinguish either the matter or the size of these projectiles launched at the speed of light, they nevertheless found, with an infinitely small margin of error, their trajectory and the point of impact which they established at latitude 46 ° 12 and longitude 6 ° 05.

The city’s Mayor, pointing his finger at the map on the desk, was moved by an intergalactic shudder – it was Geneva …

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Four or five elements were heading towards the center of the municipality!

By chance, a phone call warned him that the clock at the museum of watchmaking, activated by the largest pendulum of the world, had stopped a few seconds as had all the Swiss watches.

Happily, a few seconds later, everything was back in order, but the whole country had lost a little time.

Fortunately, the world’s greatest scientists, gathered at the Geneva research center and working on the acceleration of the particles of the Higgs boson, discovered through ancient writings the possible existence of Giants living behind the Planck wall, before the Big Bang.

After two weeks of intense reflection, here is their report:

1 We now have the certainty that a Giant Grandmother will appear in the city.
Exact location: Bâtiment des Forces Motrices.
She will take two days to wake up, her body moving faster than her soul.

2 It will be accompanied by a safe with memory containing all the big and small stories of the city.
This Giant Grandmother is endowed with the power of speech: although incomprehensible to us, a group of Lilliputians will be able to translate what she says.

3 A Little Girl Giant, travelling in a container dumped into the cosmos, floating like a rocket, will violently strike the ground of Geneva.
Exact location: city of Carouge.
Other elements are likely to hit the theater of the same name.

4 A giant pot, piloted by the armoured knight of time lost, will land on Lake Geneva, floating along with the current.

5 Some hallucinatory beliefs will testify that even Gargantua dropped his fork, planted in a car in the space of Meyrin.

This annoying phenomenon will not exceed three or four days.

It is strongly recommended that the population respect the safety perimeter of approximately 500 meters near the impacts. At the present time, it is impossible to measure the poetic contamination of these explosions.

Think of your children! Imagine the psychological warping these particular phenomena could cause in their dreams of lost time. Time is too serious a notion to leave to just anyone!

In the end, and by decision, the mayor, in the face of the municipal council, decided to ignore this ill-advised advice, allowing free will to fly in the consciousness of the inhabitants cradled by the unknown.

“This Grandmother can speak and she has a strange language with Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Arabic and Asian consonances”, explains Jean-Luc Courcoult in an exclusive interview he gave for the first show of the Grandmother Giant.

Physical characteristics

Her face is made of silicon; her hair and eyebrow are made of horses’ tails. Her hair up in a bun weighs 26 lb! She is 24 ft tall and weighs 3,80 lb. 25 Lilliputians are required to give life to her. When she walks she can reach 0.62 miles per hour and in her chair she can move at 1.86 miles per hour.

Accessories / Equipment

She wears a long dress made with 393 ft of each thing: printed fabric, cotton for the lining and cotton for the borders. Her shoe size is 206.5, that is to say her slippers measure 18 ft! They are made of carpet and leather. Sometimes she uses glasses made to measure by a Nantes local brand. She has also a pipe, a bottle of Whisky, a scarf or a squared blanket. She comes with her immense safe, inside there is all her memories.

To walk in the city, she uses a walking stick or her wheelchair. The latter is 21ft tall, and weighs 5 ton, 4 technicians work on it during the show. Sometimes she needs to sleep on her bed or to take a rest on her wheelchair.

Activities / Personality

“Her personality can be surprising as sometimes she gets swept away by incomprehensible details. Not like madness but like an exactness that seems to inhabit her.She travels through several lived realities: in the past, the present and the future all at once. She smokes pipes. She spits from time to time. And even her anus farts sometimes lift her skirt with a smell of vanilla. […]Her steps are small. She needs a walking stick. Her body sways, disjointed by age. As if her will alone was moving her. Her veiny hands are partially affected by arthritis, but when she gets worked up, she could lift an elephant. […]Everyone looks after her. She carries timeless memory.”

The Grandmother was hosted by 3 cities, in Nantes (“The Planck Wall”, France, 2014), in Liverpool (“Memories of August 1914”, England, 2014) and in Limerick (“The Grandmother fallen from the galaxy into a field in Munster”, Ireland, 2014).

THE LITTLE GIRL GIANT

In was 2005, the Little Girl Giant appeared for the first time in the show “The visit from the Sultan of the Indies on His Time-Travelling Elephant”.

She is made of steel, poplar and lime wood. She is 5.50m high (18 ft) and weighs 800kg (1764 lb). 70 horses’ tails were necessary to make her 6.5kg (14 lb) hair.
The Little Girl Giant is handled by about 22 Lilliputians. Her child’s scooter can reach 4km/h; she goes through the cities of the world while enjoying her favorite hobbies: sewing cars on asphalt, gymnastics or sweet things’ tasting.

In 2007, she helped to capture a Rhinoceros in Chile during the show “The Little Girl Giant and the hidden Rhinoceros”, and then she left to meet Icelandic people with “The Geyser of Reykjavik”.

Two years later, she came back in “The Giantess of Titanic and the diver” in Nantes within the framework of Estuaire 2009. This creation was adapted to Berlin for the 20th birthday of the fall of the Wall (“The Berlin’s appointment”), to Chile for the Bicentenary of the independence in 2010 (“The invitation”), and to Antwerp with “The diver, his hand and The Little Girl Giant”.

The Little Girl Giant is used to wearing her famous green dress that weighs 30kg (66 lb) with 36 buttons on it. However in 2010, even if she still takes her shower with her “lightweight” nightgown which weighs 6kg (13 lb), she came back for “The Giant of Guadalajara” in Mexico with a new smock in Mexican colors. This Mexican item of clothing comes as a result of 500 hours of hand-made embroidery. 1700m (5578 ft) of embroidery thread were necessary, and 200m (656 ft) of knitting! In Guadalajara, the Little Girl Giant met the Xolo which is a character that Royal de Luxe will then present by the Little Girl Giant’s side in Nantes in 2011 (“El Xolo”).

In 2012, “Sea Odyssey” was presented to the city of Liverpool. It brought together the Little Girl Giant and the diver for the 100th birthday of the shipwreck of Titanic.

In 2014, Liverpool hosted a show of the saga of the Giants again: the Little Girl Giant and the Xolo met up with the Liverpudlians again, by the Grandmother’s side to spend memorable moments.

“Despite not being blessed with the power of speech, the Little Girl-Giant has in her eyes the crashes, swirls and hopes of all Human History.”

In 2015, she went to a new land: Australia. In Perth, for the show The Incredible and phenomenal journey to the streets of Perth, she told with the deep-sea diver a story to commemorate the centenary of Anzac.

She finally visited Montreal in 2017 to celebrate the city 375th anniversary with the Xolo and the deep sea-diver for the performance “The Giants, the great invitation”.

For 10 years, people who have hosted Royal de Luxe fell for the kind and cheerful Little Girl Giant. Mails coming from all over the world are regularly sent to her. They show tenderness, friendship and even admiration which spectators feel for her.

THE LILLIPUTIANS

Their name obviously referred to the characters from Jonathan Swift‘s novel Gulliver’s Travels, these little men who live on the island of Liliput and are six inches high.

Always faithful they are active and considerate, they take care night and day of the Giants, Royal de Luxe’s Lilliputians serve the Giant in the manner of the lackeys who were in the service of the King in olden days. From lackeys of the eighteenth century they also inherit their ceremonial suit in red velvet. On their feet, the safety shoes they wear bring us back to the current century and remind the timelessness of our Giants and their acolytes.

From show to show, Lilliputians become more and more numerous. All of them wear a red velvet costume which the cut is based on the simplified pattern of theatre costumes. These costumes are integral part of the history of Royal de Luxe. Created more than 20 years ago, they are still used in every show: we just sew on buttons again, we make alterations…

Lilliputians have become the clearly identifiable signature of the saga of the Giants of Royal de Luxe. Scale relations raise the question: who is small? Who is different? What is extraordinary?

ROYAL DE LUXE

Royal de Luxe is a street theatre company founded in 1979 by Author/Director Jean-Luc Courcoult. www.royal-de-luxe.com

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The company is distinctive in nature. Based in Nantes since 1990, its work is characterised by both large and small scale shows. Its creations follow on from one another, sometimes overlap, and have a universal language: the compulsion to take action to the streets of the world’s cities, and sometimes even to the extremes of Asian, American and African landscapes.

Royal de Luxe has created and developed various forms of theatre, including the ‘theatre of places’, ‘theatre of shop windows’ and ‘accidents of theatre’. At the heart of his shows, in which machinery transports us into a dreamlike world, Jean-Luc Courcoult develops scenarios in which we might, for example, watch live The Very First Roman Photo; meet King Louis XIV and Joan of Arc as they appear from a 10 ton book in The Real History of France; witness the incongruous meeting of Shakespeare and Moliere on the same stage in Sale! Two Shows for the Price of One; or enter into shop windows with The Mannequins’ Revolt.

In parallel to these creations the company has developed a new form of theatre, which has become its clearly identifiable signature: the saga of the Giants. It is story telling on a city-wide scale. The Giants, handled by tens of Lilliputians, travel the world to tell our fundamental narratives, those which impress upon the collective imagination. They mix eras and genres, explore the essential and the contextual, and bring together millions of spectators. Some critics have, with good reason, recognised the creation of contemporary myths through these living frescoes: they help build the common memory of the city. This is the potency of Royal de Luxe.

EAT!

PARTICIPATE IN THE SAGA

Would you like to be part of the volunteers and live this giant adventure from whithin?

Register here

UNUSUAL MOMENTS WITH A GIANT!

BREAKFAST WITH THE GIANT GRAND-MOTHER!

The body of the Grandmother, traveling faster than her soul, will arrive at the Building of the Driving Forces (BFM) two days before its awakening.
Come and observe her and tell her stories in the hollow of the ear during an unusual breakfast before opening to the public.